In the Zone: Nauset baseball playing hardball

Friday

May 31, 2013 at 2:00 AMMay 31, 2013 at 7:22 AM

The Warriors hadn't finished higher than fourth in the seven-team Atlantic Coast League in more than 10 years and squeaked into the postseason in 2012 with a win just before the end of the regular season.

JEN McCAFFREY

Prior to this season, Nauset baseball was easily an afterthought.

The Warriors hadn't finished higher than fourth in the seven-team Atlantic Coast League in more than 10 years and squeaked into the postseason in 2012 with a win just before the end of the regular season.

But this spring has been different.

Four years after head coach Lou Elia took over a struggling four-win team, the Warriors have revived a baseball culture in the school and the community.

The result: Nauset went 16-4 this season, its best overall record since at least 1998, and earned the No. 1 seed in the Division 2 South tournament.

"I think it's a case where any coach, and Lou in particular here, has made his kids passionate about the game," said Nauset athletic director Keith Kenyon. "He's done some incredible things with facility improvements and awareness of our baseball program. Our kids are playing American Legion in the summer. He's a baseball junkie. He loves the game and his kids have the same affection for the game."

The next phase in Nauset's remarkable season begins at 7 p.m. Monday at Eldredge Park in Orleans. The Warriors host the winner of today's Hopkinton-Milford game.

Lou Elia sat in a conference room at Nauset Regional High last week wearing a baseball T-shirt and shorts with the yellow and black school colors. His white hair poked out from underneath his Nauset cap.

He spoke proudly of the accomplishments of his scrappy team, one that he inherited in the spring of 2010 only about a week before the season began. He had no knowledge of the players and just one assistant coach, John Mattson, who was also new to the program.

At that time, Nauset had failed to make the playoffs two straight seasons and had combined to win 10 games in two years.

Elia, a former pitcher at Quinnipiac College in late 1960s and early 70s, was determined to reinvigorate the team.

"It was a job changing the culture," he said. "But the culture has changed. The attitude has changed. The community has changed from when I first got here. It's been a very positive experience in the last couple years for everybody."

Nauset won six games Elia's first season and seven the next with several freshmen and sophomores gaining experience.

Nick Taber, now a senior captain and right-handed starter for the Warriors, was called up to the varsity as a freshman during Elia's first year.

"He is the only coach I've had for the past four years so I really don't know much different with Nauset, but he's definitely really passionate with the team. He cares a lot about us," Taber said.

The improvements were incremental and Elia realized he needed to keep the team motivated in different ways during the tough stretches.

Through the Nauset Warriors Booster Club and several donations of equipment and labor from the local community they were able to improve the field at the school, buy new black and yellow uniforms and ditch the old pinstripes. The team room was painted, a bullpen was added and a batting cage was installed.

"The kids are seeing things are getting done and they're getting more excited," Elia said. "A lot of the parents got on board to donate their time. It's become a community-type of effort with everybody pitching in doing something and the kids see that and appreciate that."

On the field, Elia knew one way his team could gain an edge was through the mental side.

"I've definitely learned that your mind is a huge part of the game," said Taber, who is considering playing at Div. II Bentley next spring.

"From the beginning when he started coaching us, he had us read The Mental Game of Baseball (by H.A. Dorfman and Karl Kuehl). And he gave us quizzes to make sure we read it," said Taber.

Last season, with the goal of earning a tournament berth for the first time since 2007, Elia decided to split the regular season into four, five-game sets to make winning the necessary 10 games a less daunting task. If the Warriors could win three of the series, they would qualify.

"We hadn't won 10 games in (five) years so you say, 'How would we do that?' I'm trying to get them to play one pitch at a time," said Elia. "They have to realize you can't worry about the last pitch that was thrown. You have to worry about what's coming next."

It's working. The Warriors made it to the playoffs in 2012 with a 9-4 win over Cape Tech, just days before the end of the regular season.

Nauset hosted Falmouth in the opening round of the tournament. Trailing 5-0 entering the sixth, the Warriors rallied to tie the score at 5. They loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh and all Will Shackelford needed to do was hit a fly ball deep enough to score the winning run.

He did that — and more — jacking a line-drive grand slam down the left field line for the monumental tournament victory. It was his first homer of the season.

Nauset lost the next game against a powerful Dighton-Rehoboth team, but the mental hurdle of winning a postseason game had been cleared.

Along with a group of dedicated parents including Ken Taber, Jay Shackelford and Casey Thomas, Elia encouraged a new American Legion team for the Lower Cape last summer, Orleans Post 308. He noticed his players were often relegated to the bench of the local Legion or Senior Babe Ruth teams when talented players vacationed on the Cape during the summer.

"I just saw a need for another route to go because you have to play in order to get better," Elia said. "Now they're playing 50 or 60 innings, and getting 50 or 60 at bats in the summer, and they're playing against good teams, so they're playing competitive baseball."

The extra summer games, along with clinics at The Dugout in Hyannis and working out at Willy's Gym in North Eastham helped keep baseball the focus from January through October.

"Everybody thinks baseball goes from March 18 to the end of May," said Elia. "But no, if you want a good program, you have to instill in them that hard work pays off. They bought into it."

Meanwhile, the mix of talent from towns across the Cape has also given the team a unique roster. Through school choice, several key players elected to attend Nauset for its academic reputation. Freshman starting catcher Mason Swift, of Sandwich; sophomore shortstop Gerritt Merrill, of Barnstable; sophomore infielder Noah Grevelis, of Harwich; and junior captain Colin Mason, of Yarmouth, all chose Nauset over their respective school districts.

"I decided to school choice to Nauset because I knew what the potential held for me in the academic part as well as the athletic part," said Mason, who has been a starter since his freshman season. "I definitely made that decision on my own through meeting with faculty and with kids that I knew. Through baseball, I made a great group of friends and I feel the team chemistry, especially coming from a non-district place, that I fit right in."

Swift, the freshman catcher, has been a nice surprise, impressively handling two senior starters in right-hander Taber and left-hander Ray Rowell.

Shackelford, a junior pitcher and infielder, continues to be a spark plug while Mason, Merrill and Grevelis, along with outfielders Colin Ridley, Willy Boyd and Antonio Espinoza have all played important roles in the Warriors' breakout season.

It may have been a good omen. Nauset opened the 2013 season in April by beating Barnstable, 5-4, in extra innings on Taber's walk-off single.

With the same approach from last season of taking three out of the five season "series," Nauset went 10-1 in its first 11 games to lock up a tourney berth. The 10th win fittingly came again against Barnstable and marked the Warriors' first season sweep of the Red Raiders in several years.

Nauset also had big league wins over Dennis-Yarmouth and then swept league-leading Plymouth North a week before the season ended to move into a tie for the ACL lead.

But after playing five games in six days, the Warriors dropped their ACL regular-season finale to Falmouth. Plymouth North won its final two league contests to clinch the title by one game.

However, that disappointment was erased when Nauset learned that its 16-4 overall record made the Warriors the No. 1 seed in the Division 2 South Sectional.

"Surprising, somewhat," said Kenyon of the top spot. "Plymouth North won the ACL, but we beat them twice so we had the head-to-head advantage there. And we had a pretty good nonleague schedule playing Barnstable twice, and Hingham and Whitman-Hanson, so I think the strength of our schedule really helped us as well."

The Warriors know deep their success resonates within the supportive community. The year-round workouts, the summer play, the mental preparation have all paid off.

"When you start winning, they start realizing maybe he's not full of it," said Elia of how his team has evolved. "You see little things work, if you do this and pay attention and focus.

"I just really got heavy into the goals and the mental game," he added. "You need that to change the culture and you need to win. The second year was a little bit more (than the first) and third year was great. And now it's rolling."

If it keeps on rolling with five more wins — or one series sweep as Elia might say — Nauset could bring home a championship.

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